Framing a Radius Stair

GET THE LAYOUT RIGHT — AND THE FRAMING OF THIS CURVED STAIR IS EASY

I'm a construction supervisor for a
large framing contractor in New
Mexico. Our ten crews frame about
15 custom homes each month, most
of them high end, with 3,000 or
more square feet of floor space. In
this niche, radius stairs — curved
stairs that arc as much as 180
degrees around a single point — are
quite common. I've framed 40 or 50
of them in the last nine years
and have developed a method
that's both fast and accurate.
In fact, the stair I'm about to
describe took only 16 hours
to frame.
Code Requirements
As with any stairway, the
first order of business was to
verify that the stair would
meet code. A crucial dimension
with curved stairs